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As U.S. Puts Pressure on Iran,
Gulf's Religious Rift Spreads

Sunni States See Rise
In Anti-Shiite Actions;
Scare Tactics in Bahrain

By

Andrew Higgins

Updated Feb. 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

MUHARRAQ, Bahrain -- One night last fall, incendiary leaflets denouncing Iran suddenly appeared on the walls of houses and mosques in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

"Iranians are trying to occupy your homes, the homes of your fathers and grandfathers," warned the anonymous tracts. "Do you want to be ruled by these people? No, a thousand times no!"

Bahrain, a crucial American ally and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, was quickly caught up in a wave of anti-Iranian paranoia. Politicians, clerics and the media jumped on the theme, turning Iran into a big issue in bitter local elections at the end of the year.

The trigger for all the noisy alarm? A ruckus over the purchase of a ramshackle house by a handful of local Bahrainis who share the Shiite Muslim faith of Iran.

At a time of rising tension between Washington and Tehran, the scare-mongering in Bahrain shows how America's geopolitical standoff with Iran is paralleled by much older animosities between the Muslim world's two great traditions, Sunni and Shiite. The Arab world is majority Sunni while Persian Iran is mostly Shiite. In a dangerous dynamic, legitimate concerns about Tehran's intentions are being overlain with phobias and political calculation as Arab governments, rabble-rousing politicians and clerics fan sectarian fears.

Washington views Iran as a rogue nation that arms militias in Iraq, wants to build a nuclear bomb and seeks Israel's destruction. From Arab kingdoms on the Persian Gulf to Lebanon on the Mediterranean, however, Iran is also viewed through another prism, as a non-Arab, and, for some, heretical power intent on expanding the clout of itself and fellow Shiites at the expense of the region's Sunni establishment.

Containing Tehran has become a major American foreign-policy goal. But for these countries, Iran is a hot-button domestic issue as well. Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni royal family but roughly 70% of the populace is Shiite. The nation was shaken by a series of clashes this month between Shiite protesters and security forces dominated by Sunnis.

Saudi Arabia frets about the Shiite minority who inhabit its oil-producing eastern region next to Bahrain. Kuwait, too, has a sizable Shiite minority. Lebanon's Sunni-dominated government is under threat from Hezbollah, a Shiite militia.

Even countries with hardly any Shiites, such as Egypt and Jordan, have domestic concerns. By denouncing Iran (and by association Shiites), leaders hope to outflank their most virulent critics -- militant Sunni Islamists, who often fume against Shiites as heretics. They also seek to blemish the reputation of Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite Hezbollah leader whose radical views spook Sunni leaders but delight some of their citizenry.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it believed that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, would seed tolerant democracy there and elsewhere. The war instead uncorked pent-up sectarian tensions in Iraq, pitting the country's once-dominant Sunni minority against its long-oppressed Shiite majority. The Iraqi chaos also has emboldened neighboring Iran to flex its muscles in Iraq and beyond, further stirring passions rooted in centuries of theological, political and ethnic rivalry.

Bahraini Shiites carry a wounded man during clashes with the security forces in Sanabis, south of the capital Manama, Feb. 2.

Until recently, Washington focused on Sunni threats, from Sunni insurgents in Iraq to the remnants of al Qaeda, a Sunni outfit. In his January state of the union address, however, President Bush also warned of the menace posed by Shiite extremists who "take direction from the regime in Iran." It has become clear, he said, that "we face an escalating danger" from militant Shiites "determined to dominate the Middle East." This reassessment of America's enemies underpins what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has hailed as a "realignment in the Middle East" -- a drawing together of Sunni-led Arab countries against Iran.

Some experts on the region warn that America's standoff with Iran is exacerbating Sunni-Shiite rivalry and pushing the U.S. into some unruly company. Indeed, America now unintentionally finds itself on the same page as Sunni firebrands who loathe America but sometimes hate Shiites even more. Much of the most venomous anti-Iranian rhetoric comes from militants whose views echo Osama bin Laden's.

Anti-Shiite fervor, says Vali Nasr, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., is "part of the DNA" of America's biggest foes, Sunni extremists. In recent testimony to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, he urged a cooling of tempers with Iran. "It will boomerang back against us," he says.

Shiites make up 15% or less of the world's Muslim community, but in many Sunni eyes they hold outsize influence because of Shiite-ruled Iran, which now rivals and sometimes even eclipses Israel as an object of loathing. On the gallows in Baghdad at the end of December, Saddam Hussein used his last words to denounce Americans and "Persians," or Iranians. He didn't name Israel.

A lexicon of Arab polemic previously dominated by "Zionists" and "Crusaders" -- i.e., Israel and America -- now has a new villain: the Safawis, or Iranians. The term refers to the Safavid dynasty that established Shiism as Iran's state religion in the 16th century.

The most splenetic diatribes against Iran and Shiites often come from militant Sunnis who previously focused their fire on the U.S. In a January document entitled "Covenant of the Supreme Council of Jihad Groups," for example, a Kuwaiti extremist cleric ranked Iran ahead of the U.S. and Israel in a hierarchy of foes. He railed against the "Safawi enemy that seeks the destruction of Islamic civilization."

Saudi Arabia, a prime source of toxic jihad theology in the past, now also churns out bile against Iran and Shiites. At the end of December, Abdel-Rahman al-Barrak, a senior cleric, labeled Shiites "more dangerous than Jews and Christians." King Abdullah, in a recent interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, predicted defeat for what he suggested was an Iranian-backed campaign to convert the Sunni world to Shiism and "to diminish [the Sunnis'] historical power."

Fear of Iran, of course, is anchored in real-world issues. Tehran's nuclear-research push has caused widespread jitters and prompted Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to suggest they might start nuclear programs, too. Iran's involvement in Iraq since the toppling of Mr. Hussein's Sunni tyranny has stirred real fear that Iraq will be led by a Shiite regime loyal to Tehran.

The hostility between Sunnis and Shiites began with the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 and a dispute that followed over whether his father-in-law (the Sunni choice) or his son-in-law (the Shiite candidate) was the worthy successor. The schism later fed into another rift now at the heart of the region's rivalries -- between ethnically Persian Iran, which became Shiite, and the ethnically Arab heartland, which became mostly Sunni.

Bahrain, home to some 2,500 U.S. military personnel, plays a key role in U.S. efforts to contain Iran. The Fifth Fleet's command center here controls an armada of U.S. warships -- beefed up this month by a second aircraft-carrier battle group -- that is America's main military lever against Tehran. A banking center and weekend playground for revelers from neighboring Saudi Arabia, Bahrain boasts a vibrant economy and is much more open than most Arab countries.

But as a predominantly Shiite land of roughly 700,000 ruled by Sunnis, Bahrain also sits astride the Muslim fault line shaking the region.

At the beginning of the decade, Bahrain began opening up its political system. As Shiites began to demand real power, however, the opening stalled. Washington, preoccupied by Iraq and then Iran, muted calls for greater democracy here and elsewhere in the region.

"We notice a change in America's view," says Mohammed Bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, the deputy prime minister and a member of the Sunni ruling family. "Iraq was supposed to be a good example. It failed." Democracy's weakness, he adds, is that it gives "too much influence to outsiders" -- which in this part of the world means Iran.

This month, violence flared after police arrested three Shiite activists who had long denounced Sunni political dominance. The trio were released after being charged with illegal agitation and other crimes. In one Shiite area last week, youths hurled fire bombs and riot police fired tear gas. More arrests followed. Newspapers close to the government alleged a conspiracy to sow chaos and reported that Shiites had set up a military training camp. Shiites denounced the reports as fabrication.

Mohammed Khaled Ebrahim, a hard-line Sunni member of Bahrain's parliament, urges visitors to read a document called "The Secret Plan of the Ayatollahs in Light of New Circumstances." It purports to detail an Iranian plot to dominate the Middle East and force Sunnis to convert. In tone and taste for conspiracy it mimics The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a century-old Russian forgery and classic of anti-Semitic propaganda.

"It explains everything," says Mr. Ebrahim, waving an Arabic translation of the supposedly covert, Farsi-language plan. He found it on the Internet.

Though he is a shrill critic of America, he says he supports any effort to restrain Iran. He doesn't want the U.S. Navy to leave Bahrain because this "would clear the area for Iran." This, he says, is "what Shiites want." America is "like a cancer" but Iran is still more dangerous and "much more devious."

The spark for a recent flare-up of Sunni-Shia tension was a modest property investment in Muharraq, a predominantly Sunni area. Five local Shiites, all members of Bahrain's small and centuries-old community of ethnic Persians, pooled their money to buy a decrepit house for around $400,000 from its Sunni owner. They registered the purchase and then got planning permission to tear down most of the structure and rebuild separate new homes. Contractors moved in last spring to start demolition work.

One of the first to ring the alarm was Isa Adwan, a Sunni zealot and part-time preacher who lives next door. Mr. Adwan complained about "Iranians" ruining the neighborhood. A likeminded preacher joined his campaign.

Sitting on the floor of his dingy living room, Mr. Adwan explains that he despises America, too, but thinks Shiites are worse and wishes President Bush well against Tehran. He thinks Shiites have too many children -- he has six himself -- and don't pray at the right time. But most disturbing, says Mr. Adwan, is Shiite reverence for Iranian religious figures, which he believes makes them loyal to Iran, not Bahrain. The house next door, says Mr. Adwan, was just "their first target." Iranians "want to take over the whole neighborhood, the whole country."

The neighborhood tiff reached a wider audience with the posting of the anti-Iranian leaflets. The tracts infuriated Shiites and also moderate Sunnis. Police quickly tore them down. "These things are very dangerous," says the Sunni governor of Muharraq, Salman Bin Hindi.

Instead of fading, the fear of an Iranian plot was then fanned by local media. A flurry of articles reported that officials had uncovered a secret plan by Iran to buy up land using local Shiite proxies. Authorities, prodded by Sunni politicians, formed a committee to investigate the Iranian connection.

As campaigning heated up for elections in November and December for Bahrain's largely powerless parliament, several Sunni hopefuls grabbed onto the issue. They claimed that an Iranian state-owned bank and the Iranian Embassy were financing home purchases by Shiites.

"We sniffed something very strange," recalls Isa Ahmed Abul Fateh, a Sunni former banker who was in a tight race for a seat in Muharraq, a small island. Denunciations of Iran became a big part of his campaign. Iran, he says, has been buying up land in Basra, Iraq, and "maybe they have the same objective in Bahrain."

Rivals slammed the fear-mongering -- and lost. Islamists -- both Sunni and Shiite -- won all but a handful of seats. The big losers were secular candidates who bridge the sectarian divide.

In the middle of the real-estate flap, a bombshell hit: A British national of Sudanese origin who had worked as a government consultant released a report that, backed by official documents, detailed a campaign by some hard-line Sunni officials to manipulate sectarian tensions, exploit fears of Iran and entrench Sunni dominance. One of the leaked documents was a policy paper that warned, among other things, that Shiites were buying property in Muharraq.

The former consultant, Salah Al Bander, says he sent his findings to the royal family last August and, when he received no response, later sent copies to the American, British and German embassies and to the local press. He was promptly expelled to Britain. After a burst of press coverage, the government charged the former consultant with stealing documents and other offenses. He denies doing anything wrong and says he hasn't received any notification of the charges.

Another policy paper recommends that Bahraini authorities play on U.S. hostility toward Iran and "explain to the American embassy and the international community in general" that Bahrain's main Shiite party is a Bahraini version of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia.

It is unclear whether the proposals were ever acted on or when they were made. But, say Shiite activists, they reflect the mindset of at least some in the government.

"The government strategy is to invest in anti-Iranian feeling in the West, particularly in America," says Mr. Bander, the former consultant, who is himself a Sunni.

Sheik Mohammed, the deputy prime minister, derides Mr. Bander's claims as a "mockery" but declined to comment in detail, saying the case is now in the hands of the judiciary.

At the end of September, the five Shiites who bought the house next to Mr. Adwan received a letter from the Ministry of Municipalities and Agriculture. It ordered them to sell their property, which by this point had been mostly demolished to make way for rebuilding. The letter gave no explanation other than citing a 1975 decree allowing forced purchases in "the public interest." The Shiites ignored the order. Police arrived to force their contractors to stop work.

In December, Muharraq's governor, Mr. Bin Hindi, announced that he would start vetting all property deals as a part of what he said was a drive to preserve old buildings. Shiite activists howled in protest, accusing the government of sectarian zoning.

The property next to Mr. Adwan is still empty. Its Shiite owners recently received a second letter ordering them to sell. They're haggling over compensation. The committee looking into Iran's role hasn't found any Iranian connection. But says Mr. Adwan, Iranian influence has been rolled back a few yards. Had the Shiites moved in, "I'd be surrounded on all sides."